About
A module about how machines learned to campaign
AIMPACT-EU is an Erasmus+ Jean Monnet Module running for 36 months at Babeș-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca. It equips students with the conceptual, analytical and practical tools to understand how AI-driven political advertising shapes attitudes towards European integration.
Why now
Students are more exposed to political content than any cohort before them, and have fewer opportunities to examine critically how that content is reshaped by artificial intelligence before it reaches them.
Romania adds its own pressure. In 2024 and 2025 roughly one million young voters reached voting age, many of them university students, and for a large share of them algorithmically curated platforms are the primary source of political information. Recent sociological research indicates that younger cohorts display heightened vulnerability to authoritarian and anti-democratic narratives, correlated with that same reliance on digital platforms.
AI-enabled political advertising increasingly mobilises identity to portray EU policies as intrusive or incompatible with national values. The project starts from the premise that AI does not simply carry Eurosceptic messages, it actively reconfigures how political belonging is framed.
The needs we identified
AI literacy inside EU studies
Students need conceptual and practical tools to understand how AI technologies shape political advertising and Eurosceptic discourse.
Critical engagement with political advertising
Curricula rarely connect EU governance with the real practice of digital campaigning, microtargeting and automated message testing.
Democratic resilience
The normalisation of AI-driven anti-EU narratives calls for stronger analytical and fact-checking skills, practised rather than described.
Knowledge transfer beyond academia
Policymakers, journalists and civil society need accessible, evidence-based outputs they can act on at local, national and EU level.
Objectives
Five objectives, each with a number attached
- 01
Deliver two interdisciplinary courses
At least 70 teaching hours per academic year on artificial intelligence, political advertising, Euroscepticism and EU democratic governance.
50 to 60 students per year, at least 80% positive feedback on course relevance
- 02
Introduce AI-informed teaching methods
AI-assisted content analysis, platform ad-library exercises, advertising design for gamified political platforms and digital scavenger hunts.
At least 70% of students report an improved ability to identify and assess AI-driven political advertising
- 03
Create the AIAdRep
An open access online repository of AI-enabled anti-EU political advertising case studies, supporting both student research and public education.
Minimum 120 analysed case studies and 1,500 views over three years
- 04
Build the political compass
A digital platform assessing users' vulnerability to Eurosceptic narratives and encouraging reflective learning.
At least 3,000 users
- 05
Strengthen dialogue beyond the university
Policy briefs and public workshops connecting academia, policymakers, media and civil society.
One policy brief per year to 20+ stakeholders, one workshop per year with 30+ participants
Curriculum
Two courses, two audiences
The module deliberately sits across two study programmes, so that it reaches students who would otherwise never take an EU studies course.
European Society, Cultural Identities and Communication
European integration, the European public sphere, identities and inclusion, and the EU regulatory frame that governs how political messages may be targeted.
Political Advertising
How campaigns are built, bought and tested, from platform ad libraries and microtargeting to generative content and the transparency obligations that now apply to them.
Both courses are taught in English and Romanian. Because the hosting study programmes also enrol students from the Republic of Moldova, part of the case studies deal with anti-EU advertising from Moldova, in Romanian and Russian, which gives the module a cross-border dimension.
Host institution
Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca
The module is hosted by the Faculty of Political, Administrative and Communication Sciences (FSPAC), which has a long track record in both EU-related teaching and communication sciences, including the Model EU conferences held regularly at the university and the NAPOMUN Model UN conference, founded there in 2009 by the project coordinator.
The project builds directly on political compass platforms developed at the university for Romania and five other EU countries, so questionnaire design, data collection workflows, respondent analytics and GDPR-compliant handling procedures are already in place.
